Karumba

21/05/2012
 On leaving Croydon we visited their local beauty spot Lake Belmore for a short time and took a couple of photos from the lookout over the town. Croydon,  as most towns, has a boast and it is their claim to have the oldest general store in Australia, still operating. It certainly had a point, the inside is very dated lots of square cubby holes behind the counter stocked with not so old goods. The store also had a so called museum to the side, but we have seen it all before, just a lot of rusty old tins and a few bottles more rusty old junk we have seen before in various places, but the store itself was interesting.
 So, now we are on the west side of Cape York at Karumba on the shore of the gulf of Carpentaria. We are amazed to find this small resort has 3 van parks and already they are nearly full of grey nomads up from the south for the winter. It’s quite hot so we expect the drone of air conditioner units each day…….what do they come up here for?!!
  We have already sussed out the Sunset Tavern, a pub situated on the beach looking out over the Gulf and have seen our first sunset. It could be a compulsory visit every evening as we think we could stay here a while.

 22/05/2012
  Today was a chill out day which we are very good at. Karumba is a small town where most people come to escape the southern winter and fish. It’s very remote, serviced by plane twice a week so papers are always a day or two old and fresh fruit and veg comes in with the plane. You can’t help but chill. We investigated the shop and bought enough stuff to keep us going for another couple of days. ( We are staying 5 nights). We cooled off in the camp swimming pool which was very chilly, then had a sundowner at the pub chatting to other travellers. The sunset tonight was much better than last nights, well it would be, we left the camera behind!

 23/05/2012
 Another action packed day watching people fishing from the beach during the morning and sitting in the shade through the afternoon. Karumba is famous for it’s prawn fleet but they are no where to be seen as they now go out for months at a time delivering their catch to a huge mother ship which processes the prawns on board. In the meantime the town is full of recreational fishermen.
 The town is actually split into 2 parts, we are at Point Karumba and about 5K’s away is the main Port of Karumba. Because we have set up here we will not go into Karumba until we leave on Saturday.  Here at the Point, as well as a shop and a pub there is also a fish and chip shop so we gave that a whirl this evening. Barra and chips, really good.
 On TV tonight they showed the “State of Origin”. A fiercely fought rugby league series of matches  between Queensland and N S W played  annually. Obviously there is great rivalry between the supporters, it was great to sit with fans from both states supporters, us being neutral. We watched the match in the camp kitchen and got eaten alive by mossies. Queensland won the game with a very dubious try which didn’t go down too well with New South Wales fans, I have to say they were robbed.

 24/05/2012
 There is a change in the weather as it rained in the night and has continued through the day at odd times which means we did even less than yesterday. It was a good opportunity to catch up on our reading and computerating and we are now up to speed with our blog and photo’s.
 We have met a couple of Sydney people up here on holiday and have joined them a twice for sundowners at the pub. It’s a perfect place to watch the sun set but tonight there was too much cloud.
 Treated ourselves to fish and chips again as we couldn’t be bothered on the Barbie in the cold.
 Today our youngest grandson became a teenager. Happy Birthday Tobi!

25/05/2012
 Can’t believe the temperature today, it never got above 19c……. Freezing. At least it makes the Victorians feel more like home and not need their air conditioners. Everyone is rugged up, no one has gone fishing, all in their vans keeping out of the wind and rain.
 We decided to make everything secure and drive into Karumba for diesel, booze and anything else we might need for the next few days as we are going bush again. We got pretty much all we needed but at a cost, everything being so much more expensive in the outback. For instance, a 15 litre container of drinking water $7 generally is $18 out here but we understand that as everything has to be transported long distances by road or air.
 Wearing our warmest clothes we met up with our Sydney pals for a beer in the pub then said our goodbyes. We are both moving on tomorrow and as usual when we get to make friends with people we always seem to be travelling in opposite directions.